Jones’ mercurial, often inscrutable body of work delivers yet another change-up to readers’ expectations.
A drolly insinuating chamber piece about a trio of Black American expatriates.
First published in Germany in 1986, this novel would be considered an anomaly for almost anybody except Jones, whose legendary stature among African American novelists was established almost 50 years ago by such provocative inquiries into Black women’s psyches as Corregidora (1975) and Eva’s Man (1976). Her new spate of publications that began last year with the historical epic Palmares continues with this predictably unpredictable first-person account by Amanda Wordlaw (“Wonderful name for a writer, isn’t it?”), a lapsed author of racy novels like The Other Broad’s Story who has forsaken writing fiction for travel books. As the novel opens, she is living on “the white-washed island of Ibiza” with her longtime friend Catherine Shuger, a prominent sculptor, and Catherine's husband, Ernest, who writes articles for popular science magazines. Amanda wastes no time telling you what’s whack about two-thirds of this triad: Catherine keeps trying to kill Ernest, who in turns puts her into an asylum, from which she is released by Ernest, whom she tries to kill again. And again. It’s all outrageous enough at the outset to make readers anticipate an absurdist-modernist slapstick farce. Yet the icy, deadpan tone of Amanda’s leisurely narrative voice, though seasoned with sneaky wordplay and impish irony, helps make this a quirkier, more reflective kind of comedy. The repartee, as with the rest of the story, can drift and meld into side tangents and back, complete with literary references, art criticism, and coy innuendo. Jones’ impulse to keep her readers alternately off balance and in the weeds threatens to upend the novel altogether, especially at the end, as shifts in tone and locale make you question almost everything that came before. Whether this was intended or not, its effect seems perfunctory, even abrupt. It may not be the most powerful or best realized of Jones’ novels, but it may be the closest she’s come to making us laugh as much as wince. Her vaunted blend of ambiguity and disquiet comes across here as a sly, even smirky dance. And her inquiries into how Black women live now are present throughout. Not just “present,” in fact, but “prescient,” as Amanda herself likely couldn’t keep herself from saying.
Jones’ mercurial, often inscrutable body of work delivers yet another change-up to readers’ expectations.Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2022
ISBN: 978-080-702994-7
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Beacon Press
Review Posted Online: July 12, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
This propulsive thriller twists into the dark and bloody underbelly of the world of fine art.
The discovery that a revered artist’s sculpture contains a human bone sets off scandal and violence.
Art historian James Becker has what seems like a sweet deal. He’s the curator of the collection of the Fairburn Foundation, housed at a stately home owned by the Lennox family: Sebastian, Becker’s best friend, and his bitter mother, Lady Emmeline. Becker’s wife, Helena, was Sebastian’s fiancee first, but they’re all very civilized about it and happily awaiting the birth of her baby. The centerpiece of the Fairburn collection is works by the late Vanessa Chapman, an artist about whom Becker wrote his thesis, and with whom he is somewhat obsessed. Partly, it’s because of her great talent, but she was also a glamorous figure, a beauty who, as she became successful, sequestered herself on an isolated Scottish tidal island called Eris. She had a dark side—lots of stormy relationships, plus a philandering mooch of a husband who vanished without a trace a few decades ago. Her reputation, though, has risen after her death—so much so that the Fairburn has loaned some of her works to the Tate Modern. That’s where a forensic anthropologist sees one of her sculptures, made of found objects that include what’s described as an animal bone. The scientist is sure the bone is human, and soon Becker finds himself scrambling to prevent scandal. Vanessa willed her works and papers to the foundation, but some of them are still on Eris, guarded by her longtime friend Grace Haswell. A retired doctor, Grace lived with Vanessa off and on over the years and nursed her through her fatal cancer. It was a surprise when Vanessa left her estate not to Grace but to Douglas Lennox, Emmeline’s husband and Sebastian’s father. Douglas was Vanessa’s gallerist and lover, but the two had a nasty falling-out. Sebastian is so frustrated by Grace’s refusal to turn over all of the bequest that he’s ready to sue her, but Becker believes he can negotiate, so off to the the island he goes. He finds far more treachery and shocking secrets than he expected, past and present alike. Hawkins keeps her cast tight, her wild setting ominous, and her plot moving fast.
This propulsive thriller twists into the dark and bloody underbelly of the world of fine art.Pub Date: Oct. 29, 2024
ISBN: 9780063396524
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Mariner Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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